Friday, June 8, 2007

The Time I Almost Got Run Over by a Bus

Some of us lived far enough away from our school that we took the city bus every day. There'd be a whole gaggle of us noisy, rowdy kids waiting for the extra buses the city put on the route.

Actually that reminds me of one of the most offensive things I have ever seen a bus driver do. The bus was late, and I don't mean by five minutes. For some reason we'd waited almost half an hour for the bus to arrive. The bus driver was a lady I'd never seen before. At the first main street an elderly man got on the bus and used a transfer. The transfer ticket was expired by about two minutes. The bus driver told the man he'd have to pay cash, use a ticket or get off.

He refused. He claimed that he'd been waiting at least twenty minutes for the bus and that it was her problem because she was late. She snarled, "We run a ten minute bus service! Pay or get off!" Several of us came forward and told the bus lady that we rode that bus every day and she was in fact between twenty and thirty minutes late and that the gentleman was not trying to stiff her. She stopped the bus and screamed at us to sit down and shut up or she'd throw us off the bus.

We sat down and shut up. The gentleman decided to handle things diplomatically and paid cash for his fare. Problem solved. Or not. He sat up at the front and continued talking to the bus driver, insisting that she was being unreasonable and unprofessional. He asked her for her driver I.D. number.

She freaked. She stopped the bus, opened the door and screamed at him to get off the bus or she'd call the police and have him arrested for assault. Everyone else on the bus was too scared to do anything so we just sat quietly and waited. The gentleman picked up his cane and calmly got off the bus. We spent the rest of our bus ride in stunned silence.

We never saw that bus driver again. Thank goodness.

But I was going to tell you about the time I almost got run over by a bus.

The usual crew after school was waiting for the bus. Included in the crew was Sara Gale. I happened to be standing next to her and noticed that her lip looked different that it had the day before. I thought about it for a while until it hit me. Of course I was too stupid to keep it to myself. Just as the bus was coming I asked her loudly, "Hey, did you shave your upper lip?"

Oh boy.

The next thing I knew I was on my back in the middle of the road, my glasses were broken and the bus brakes were squealing. The bumper shadow stopped just over my head. Apparently she'd punched me right in face and sent me sprawling into the path of the "yellow peril".

For the record, it was my fault and I was entirely in the wrong and I deserved worse than I got.